The Allotment Chef: Home-grown Recipes and Seasonal Stories. Paul Merrett

call of the allotment is simply too strong to resist and, at these times, you just have to drag the kids there kicking and screaming, but we have discovered that there are ways to encourage the children to get involved. You can sit the little darlings down and calmly explain that the planet is in trouble and needs our help; possibly they can be convinced that the outdoor life that is on offer is one that can enhance their lives way beyond the reach of a Game Boy or an iPod; or you can simply resort to bribery …

      Easter Monday starts with coffee and hot cross buns, and the conversation centres around the fifth family member – the allotment.

      ‘Well, kids, where would you like to go today: Chessington World of Adventures or the allotment?’

      ‘Oh, Dad, not Chessington again. Let’s go and dig.’

      That conversation never took place over breakfast because, right now, my children would rather go to school than the allotment. I offer several packets of football cards and a kilogram of chewy sweets but still they complain so, in the end, MJ suggests that we can go to Chessington later in the week if they come to the allotment today, and they finally yield. This is great, but how do we get them there tomorrow? We shall soon be offering skiing trips or safaris if we continue to up the stakes.

      The day starts with a trip to the garden centre (I am rapidly becoming a regular), where we buy some paint for the shed – chosen by Ellie. Then we meet Dilly and Doug and their children at the allotment.

      Progress is being made. MJ and I have started digging an area of about eight feet (2.4 metres) square, which will be our asparagus bed. The problem is that we are still having to sieve every spadeful for debris – I feel like I’m a pastry chef once more sieving icing sugar (though this is a lot more heavy!). An entire morning is devoted to this thankless task and this is just eight square feet.

      I finally finish off the asparagus bed and then MJ and I make a start on the rhubarb bed. While we dig, the kids all paint the shed – it is lavender and marine-blue stripes, and is, without doubt, the smartest construction on the entire allotment site (personally, I wanted to do red and white stripes in honour of Brentford FC but I was overruled). They have done a great job and, by the time we leave, most of our allotment neighbours have come over to admire their work.

      One of them, John, tells us of an allotment hosepipe ban put in place by Ealing Council, despite it being only April. I get the impression he sees this as nothing less than botanical murder by the council but, frankly, with nothing planted bar potatoes, we couldn’t care. So, despite this news, and after what has been a really good day, we fire up the barbecue. As we eat, we can see the progress we have already made: a potato patch, a compost bin, a very smart blue and purple shed, an asparagus bed with freshly sieved soil, and a rhubarb bed half finished. And all this domestic bliss for just the price of entry to Chessington World of Adventures.

      The following week school restarts and MJ gets back to work, leaving me lots of time to spend at the allotment. I finish digging the rhubarb bed and get it manured and lined with floorboards; one of my neighbours is a builder called Richard who does loft conversions, so I have now got easy access to as many floorboards as any gardener could wish for.

      I also line the asparagus bed, which we have raised as a trial of the raised bed system. I have spent many hours now reading all I can about this succulent vegetable. It’s one I’m desperate to grow but, one of the reasons asparagus can be so expensive to buy is that it takes the farmer three years to produce a crop he can sell. For the first two years after planting asparagus must be left untouched. Dr DG Hessayon, author of The Vegetable and Herb Expert, warns the reader that taking even one spear from newly growing asparagus can have catastrophic consequences. This is all well and good, but what Dr Hessayon forgets is that I am a man with a mission – I need asparagus recipes in my book and I, therefore, can’t wait three years for it to grow.

      By now I am totally absorbed by the allotment and have started turning down weekend trips to visit friends and family, opting instead to carry on digging. The weather is improving, the dark days of a freezing barren wasteland seem far away and the whole project now feels under control.

      One Sunday morning over breakfast the kids ask the inevitable question: ‘Do we have to go to the allotment today?’ My response would have been a gruff ‘definitely’, but MJ got in there quicker than me. She suggests that they have their own vegetable bed where they can plant exactly what they want. She adds that she will help them dig it and Dad will buy the plants the next time he goes to the plant shop.

      My initial plan had been that everything we grow, wherever possible, should be from seed, but I can see MJ’s point and I refrain from pointing this out. If we can fuel their enthusiasm, it’s worth relaxing the rules so, after breakfast, we give them a gardening book and tell them to make a list of what they want to plant. This list, when complete, looks something like this:

      I am trying hard to embrace MJ’s cunning plan and show willing but, when I read their list, it’s hard not to give just a small lecture on the principles of plant types and crop rotation. I bite my lip just in time.

      When we get to the allotment MJ immediately stakes out a small bed, about ten by five feet (3 x 1.5 metres) and starts to dig the kids’ vegetable patch and, to my amazement, they are happy to help.

      During the afternoon we have some visitors; our next-door neighbours Gill, Mal, Jake and Joe come down to give us a hand. With four adults now digging, we make real progress. The sun shines and I am soon stripped to the waist. Vegetable gardeners need a weathered look about us because we are the outdoorsy types!

      The extra help means that we not only finish all the beds on the go but we also start and finish a soft fruit bed and begin on bed number two of our three rotational beds – things are seriously moving on. When we come home I immediately have to apply aftersun to my back because it is so badly burnt, and then I collapse into bed.

      Twelve hours later I am back on site and proudly gazing at our plot. I take stock of where we have got to:

      Potato patch – rotivated (against my better judgement) and planted (variety unknown). This is bed number one of our three rotational beds

      Asparagus bed – dug, 8 x 8 feet (2.4 x 2.4 metres), raised and lined with boards

      Rhubarb bed – dug, 3 x 3 feet (0.9 x 0.9 metres), lined with boards

      Soft fruit bed – dug, 12 x 5 feet (3.6 x 1.5 metres), lined with boards

      Kids’ bed – dug, 10 x 5 feet (3 x 1.5 metres), lined with boards

      Herb bed – dug, 2 x 3 feet (0.6 x 0.9 metres), lined with boards

      Rotational bed two – under construction

      OK, so we haven’t actually planted anything except potatoes so far, but, with all these beds ready, we are just one shopping trip away.

      We have three gardening centres near us, if you include Homebase, which I don’t because it is owned by a supermarket. So, we have two gardening centres near us and both are good for the more general gardening requirements, but, when it comes to plants – especially the permanent crops – they can be a little lacking in choice. For example, if you are a chap who wants a blackcurrant bush, your local garden centre will no doubt obligingly flog you one, but, if you are a chap like me, say, who has done nothing other than read about blackcurrant bushes for the previous six nights, that is different. That marks this chap out from your common or garden blackcurrant bush customer, as this chap is obviously well up on Ribes nigrum and he simply won’t take the first bush he is offered. This chap needs a garden centre with a choice befitting his knowledge. In fact, this chap needs Wisley Garden Centre.

      Wisley Garden Centre is the Wembley Stadium of garden centres. It is run by the Royal Horticultural Society and is situated just off the A3 in Surrey, just 30 miles away. I don’t actually want a blackcurrant bush at all – that is just by way of explanation – but I do have a rather particular shopping list gleaned from my previous six nights researching